It's been almost ten years since the anime release of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and it's still beloved by fans around the globe to this day. Known as the magical girl anime that took the typical tropes and flipped them all on its head to a completely unsuspecting audience, many fans believe it has impacted the genre the most since genre-defining juggernauts like Sailor Moon.
Today, we'll be taking a look a ten Madoka Magica cosplay that'll have you wondering if they must have made a contract with Kyubey in order to look so faithful to the source material.
10 Purely Wishing
The most hopeful and empathetic of the group, the titular character Madoka herself is a fan-favorite when it comes to cosplay, for both her personality and her absolutely lovely design. Beedoescosplay pulls both of these off wonderfully, as it's easy to tell from a single glance what kind of character she is. The costume itself looks both ornate and accurate.
The foliage in the background is a lovely touch as well, as it fits Madoka's gentle and kind personality quite well.
9 Protector And Protected
In the first episode of the show, Madoka (alongside her friend Sayaka) gets trapped inside a witch's labyrinth after trying to rescue Kyubey, who had been calling out to her via telepathy. Just as she was about to be attacked, her golden-haired savior stepped in to banish evil and save the day!
This shot posted by the Madoka, spirit_ella, perfectly captures that scene down to the last detail. From the professional-and-serious persona Mami adopts while in battle to Madoka's more timid personality to their incredibly accurate costumes, everything comes together to make a wonderful shot.
8 Eternity Of Cycles
Perhaps the most tragic of all of the series' characters, Homura Akemi is destined to either be trapped in an endless, hopeless cycle of trying and failing to save Madoka from her fate, or accept that everything she's done so far has been pointless and give in to despair. In her final fight against Walpurgisnacht, she gets knocked to the ground, partially trapped under a collapsed building, ready to accept that everything she'd done had been for naught.
This shot of chocolate_n_milk_cosplays as Homura captures those final moments perfectly- eyes closed, ready to give in to despair. Of course, we know that this is exactly when Madoka steps in to save her, so it isn't a completely unhappy ending.
7 Golden Mentor
Arguably the most powerful of the cast, having even bested Homura in a fight, Mami Tomoe is truly a force to be reckoned with. Besides being insanely powerful, she also tends to make quite the show out of her battles, striking various poses and even having specialized names for her attacks that she calls out, much like a comic book superhero.
Here we have spicysugarheart striking one of those iconic poses, giving off an air of confidence even without her trademark rifle in sight. Everything about her costume looks accurate, and those golden contact lenses are simply striking.
6 Called To By Kyubey
Though the magical girl attire of each character is arguably always the most popular choice of cosplayers, the girls' school uniforms get a fair share of love, too. In Madoka's case this is especially true, since she doesn't actually become a magical girl until the final episode, so we spend a lot of time getting to know her in her typical attire.
Posing meekly while holding Kyubey in her hands, lightningdoubledashbaron makes an incredibly convincing civilian Madoka here. She really looks like she stepped right out of the anime!
5 Lonely Gunner
Although Mami comes off as incredibly cool, confident, and self-assured, we quickly learn that this is little more than an act that she puts up, due to her not ever wanting to come off as weak to others. It's revealed a few episodes in that she's actually cripplingly lonely, and the one thing she wants more than anything is someone she can share her true self with.
Right before her tragic end, it seems as if she might finally get what she wants, as Madoka agreed to contract after her battle. Margot_hime pulls off a rather ornate-looking Mami here, reaching out in the second picture, even fittingly captioned 'Join me, Madoka'. Her costume looks fantastic, and she really nailed Mami's true personality here while still managing to look cool and composed.
4 Daydreaming
Madoka is shown to be many things throughout the series- she's kind, empathetic, perhaps a little lower on the self-confidence scale (at least when we're introduced to her) and she's also an avid daydreamer. She even thought up her magical girl design well before ever making her contract, and sketched up designs for what she would look like alongside sketches of Mami.
Here we have a lovely shot of cosplay.tory peacefully sprawled out in Madoka's magical girl attire beside a lovely prop bow. Everything about this has a wonderful air of charm to it, and the cherry blossoms on the bow's side really compliment the shot.
3 A Sorrowful Love
Young love- so blissful and sweet, right? Sadly, that isn't how Sayaka experienced it, or at least that certainly isn't how things ended. Using her wish to cure an incurable physical disease that her childhood crush was suffering from, thinking that perhaps the two would get together afterwards. However, that wasn't what fate had in mind. Once Sayaka learned the truth, that her body was mere more than an empty shell after making her wish, she gave up any right to try to have a future with the very person she sold her soul for.
Looking sadly down at a single red rose in her hand, foxwolf.cosplay perfectly captures Sayaka's emotional state at the time. Her uniform looks well-made, and the soul gem necklace and ring are nice touches.
2 In-Kyubeytor
While the human cast of the show are typically the ones that get the most attention, that doesn't mean Mitakihara's resident incubator doesn't get a fair share of attention from fans, as well. Love him or hate him for the arguably cruel ways he goes about things, Kyubey's design is still incredibly cute, and fans creating humanized designs for non-human characters is a pretty popular trend in the cosplay community.
This shot of sewing_goblin as a human Kyubey is adorable! We know we probably wouldn't be able to say no to making a contract, even if we knew the kind of fate that might await us because of it.
1 A Longing Gaze
To finish things off, we have another take on Sayaka, this time in her magical girl attire. Pawbites absolutely nails it here, down to the last detail. The gold trim on the top and cape looks wonderful, and everything is incredibly accurate. The makeup helps to accentuate everything nicely, and with all of the individual parts of the shot combined, it gives off a rather sad feeling, which fits Sayaka's character well.
Looking off into the distance, we can only wonder what it is that's caught her attention. Could she be longingly gazing at her crush Kyosuke, knowing that it could never be?